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SAFE Act hurts gun owners

I was using old editions of your newspaper to start my woodstove when I saw your Jan. 23 editorial "Stop shooting blanks trying to repeal SAFE Act."

As a retired federal agent, I would ask you: What has the SAFE Act done to disarm criminals? Yes, we know honest gun owners will comply, but how many criminals "changed their ways"?

I had to laugh when I read, "Law enforcement agencies have wisely focused their attention on the law's most serious provision, possession of an unregistered handgun, a felony." Is that possession by an ordinary citizen, or a criminal?

The Federal National Firearms Act of 1938 in Section 902, Paragraph (f) says "any felon in possession of a firearm or ammunition is subject to 10 years in jail." That pre-dates the SAFE Act by more than half a century. Have federal and state prosecutors been "shooting blanks" since 1938 at New York criminals?

The SAFE Act controls honest gun owners while criminals ignore another gun control law. If laws stopped crime, why not just pass that specific law to outlaw crime? No gun control law ever made my law enforcement job any easier.